William Howard Taft

“ When the operation of the law works uniformly as against all parts of the assessment district and results in a higher cost of the improvement, and an increased assessment on all the owners of land who have paid, it violates no constitutional right of theirs as long as their benefits continue respectively to exceed their individual assessments. ”

“ A board of supervisors of the district are elected who attend to the construction of the improvement. The cost of the improvement is to be paid by assessment upon the property benefited, and all the lands included within the boundaries of the district and assessed for the improvement are to remain liable for the costs of the improvement until the same are fully paid. One permitted method of meeting the cost is by bonds. ”

“ In answering the objection that the condition feared has not yet arisen, is premature and may never arise and that such owners can apply for relief when conditions arise making it necessary, it is said that the bonds in question, the issuing of which the plaintiffs in error are seeking to have enjoined, are to be sold under the provisions of this law with the reassessment feature as a part thereof and that they become at once a cloud upon the title of plaintiffs, make it unmarketable and to that extent tend to confiscate their property and work a taking without due process of law. ”